Leeds United 7-0 Cardiff City: Just like seven
Seven. It wasn't an audacious backheel by Billy Bremner and as an aesthetic experience Firpo-to-forward on repeat can't quite compete with 1972. But on its own terms this was a perfect goal, it made a perfect seven, just give all the players a perfect ten and worry about the details in Coventry.
It's unlike Leeds United Football Club to oblige even its own fans and that's been a problem this season in particular. Perhaps part of the team's difficulty has been understanding exactly what the fans want in the first place. Promotion! But not like this! Wins! But by better scores! Strong defending! But with more excitement!
On Saturday afternoon the players demonstrated that if you make a simple request of them they will satisfy. When stoppage time began the crowds in Elland Road started chanting, 'We want seven!' When stoppage time was ending they, and the players, were celebrating a brilliant seventh goal.
By my reckoning this was the seventh time Leeds United have won 7-0. All those wins were at Elland Road. One was an FA Cup qualifier over Leeds Steelworks a few weeks into United's first full season. One was a wartime friendly win over York City in March 1940. One was in the Fairs Cup, completing a 16-0 aggregate win over Spora Luxembourg. Of the four 7-0 wins in league football, Billy Bremner played in three and scored in two, only missing the other because it was played in 1930, before he was born. Leeds haven't scored seven at Elland Road since the most famous 7-0 of them all, perhaps by any team, against Southampton in March 1972. Nottingham Forest have, in March 2012, which is how bad things got.
The Spora win came ten days after Leeds beat Chelsea 7-0 at Elland Road and was a swift confirmation of United's excellence. This weekend's over Cardiff City was making a similar point in a different way. Last Monday Leeds were part of a 0-0 draw at Burnley that, as a high profile fixture shown on TV, drew widespread attention and so derision, for being one of the most boring games ever played. What, pundits pondered, did this match say about the Premier League prospects of two potential promotees? Burnley manager Scott Parker was paying attention to the criticism, and answering it, but only by raising inadvertent questions about his own competence.
"It was only a week ago we scored five goals against Plymouth," he pointed out, before rattling off some xG numbers and his pride at stopping Leeds from scoring. "I get they're just numbers," he went on, "but we didn't score against Leeds and quickly the narrative swings that we're a really boring team.
"Was that our intention to go into that game? No, our intention was to go into that game fundamentally to put a marker down for us to replicate what we did against Plymouth. But we didn't, we didn't manage to do that."
To me, it sounds worse when you say you were intending to score five but didn't have a shot on target. That doesn't sound to me like a plan that was even close to working! At Portsmouth on Saturday, their next game, Parker's Burnley had a chance to prove their attacking credentials. And Parker's Burnley did have some shots on target, at least, but for a combined expectation of 0.7 as they played out yet another 0-0 draw. Afterwards, Parker was not saying anything about whether they'd planned to score five this time or not.
Meanwhile at Elland Road, Daniel Farke was full of fun. "We could even have scored a few more. Not perfect because we missed a few chances," he said. "But it doesn't come along that often, especially in this league. You have to enjoy it and value it."
Teams don't often come along to Elland Road and play like Cardiff City and that was another datapoint for the season and its constant arguments about creativity versus low blocks. Do Leeds need a Buendia/Maradona/Botaka type of player, or do they just need a bit of space? Cardiff were a rare bunch offering the latter and Joel Piroe, in it, made sense as a floating striker dropping deep like a no.10. Piroe has five assists this season, and although he didn't add any on Saturday, he scored two goals and notched two 'goal creating actions' by being involved in the two 'offensive actions' that lead to a goal. Those were from his total of four 'shot creating actions', of which he now has 44 — on average he's been involved in the direct build-up to two chances per game. That's not massive — Manor Solomon is making 4.5 — but from a no.9, it's helpful.
He got Leeds working here, anyway. At some point we need to write all seven goals down, for posterity, so let's begin. In the fifth minute Cardiff were upfield, putting looping crosses over like they might score a goal, until Joe Rodon headed one down and Piroe laid the ball off to Junior Firpo. He gave it back to Piroe, who turned and ran with it over halfway and played a through ball behind the defenders for the run of Dan James. I don't know if it was a perfect pass but it was close, James getting his toe to it an inch before the goalie, keeping control and keeping his balance and squaring for Brenden Aaronson to shoot between defenders into the net. Thank you Cardiff for thinking you might score a goal, and thank you for the space you left for Leeds to play.
Cardiff's manager Ömer Rıza was suspended and watching from a big empty block in the West Stand, and I was fascinated by watching one of his coaches deputise. I was writing last week about the bluffing, the art and the science of football managers, and this tracksuited whirl was expressing his credentials by obsessing about margins of inches. As Cardiff lined up to defend one free-kick he was waving and shouting frantically at one Bluebird, desperate for his attention, and when he finally made contact he did succeed in moving the player. He wanted him exactly one yard to his left and the defender dutifully occupied that square of grass until after the free-kick went elsewhere and the game had moved on, and the coach had turned his attention to the infinitesimal positioning of one of his teammates for a throw-in.
All this, to me, seemed a long way from the point given Cardiff were now 2-0 down and showing early signs that they might give seven up. In the twelfth minute Piroe was bouncing the ball off Aaronson's jerking leg, putting it through to James again, who without going round the keeper was squaring again, and Solomon was at the back post with an empty net. The rest of the half was a fake fight between Cardiff and Dan James personally, leading the contingent of Leeds players that are not just Welsh but are Swans, even the ones from Hull, as both James and Rodon played there and as their best mate Ethan Ampadu may as well have. Count last season's loanee Conor Roberts, ignore Charlie Crew being Cardiff born and raised and make sure Karl Darlow knows what's good for him, and just call it half a team riding a white swan. And four minutes after half-time call it 3-0, Rodon winning the ball at right-back, Joe Rothwell carrying it to left-wing and, via Solomon, to Junior Firpo, whose simple bouncer through the six yard box was buried by James at the back post.
Leeds did, after the second and third goals, let Cardiff have a bit of the ball for a while. The Bluebirds ended up with a high-for-visitors 42 per cent of possession. Their pitchside coach, though, soon gave up gesticulating. On the hour Aaronson, Rothwell and Firpo converged on an attempted counter, won the ball for Solomon to set up a Piroe shot, and James was clouted leg-first by Callum O'Dowda as he was about to score the rebound. Piroe scored the penalty and the conversation turned to hunger as players came from the bench, Wilf Gnonto replacing James before the restart and, with his first touch thirty seconds later, driving infield from the right wing and shooting into the bottom corner from twenty yards. Gnonto wanted a goal and he got one, and he got a flurry of celebratory rabbit punches to the ribs from Ethan Ampadu.
Who else wanted a goal? Mateo Joseph. It had been a while and instead of thirty seconds it took him more than quarter of an hour until, after Pascal Struijk passed behind the right-back for Firpo's run, he could bury another low cross etc at the back etc. Mateo's celebration was more muted, not overdoing a tap-in, not going full Chris Wood with his hands over his ears, but staying businesslike, maybe realising that after being left out of Southampton's squad potential loanee Cameron Archer might be watching at home on a stream and quite fancying himself as the focal point of, let's say it, 5.6 total expected goals. Erling Haaland might have a passing interest at those rates.
Which is only the stat, not the reality. The true expectation, with six on the scoreboard and stoppage time about to start, was seven. The pressure was, even at 6-0 up, heard as gentle joking booing about the ball not going forward quickly enough. You might think, after demonstrating what they can do when given room to play, the players might be forgiven for letting Illan Meslier have a touch. But no. I suppose this comes from the other side of the argument, about how if you don't look too closely at how much room Cardiff left, Leeds can do these scorelines so should do these scorelines, more often. "We gave it away cheaply, didn't transition well enough defensively, left spaces (and) too many unmarked players in the box," said Ömer Rıza, but also his team were unbeaten in seven, plus an FA Cup win over Sheffield United, and only Coventry had got more than 1.3 xG against them in that time. So, chicken and egg, cause and effect. Were Leeds this good or they that bad? Can Leeds do this every week or will they need teams to do that every week?
Or, can we just enjoy being top of the league when the final score is 7-0? We should, at least for a moment — "But not so you go for many drinks and still be celebrating in the morning," warned Farke, more to his players but still. And we should enjoy it when the seventh goal is scored so perfectly to please. Those five stoppage minutes of wanting seven, the amused frustration of not getting seven, the moment — with fifteen seconds left on the clock — of Firpo taking the ball central, beating a Cardiff player to it when it almost got lost, playing a through pass to Piroe, and Piroe's left foot gently diverting the ball 90 degrees so it bisected keeper and post. Seven. It wasn't an audacious backheel by Billy Bremner and as an aesthetic experience Firpo-to-forward on repeat can't quite compete with 1972. But on its own terms it was a perfect goal, it made a perfect seven, just give all the players a perfect ten out of ten and worry about the details in Coventry. We don't see 7-0 very often. ⭑彡